


Transience

by supposed2bfunny



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: 2doc - Freeform, M/M, niccalpot, pirate angst, siren au, this au has consumed me send help rip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 17:49:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16142372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supposed2bfunny/pseuds/supposed2bfunny
Summary: Murdoc approaches Captain Russel Hobbs with a question after being taken in on board his ship. Russel suggests that the answers he's looking for lie within his own unrest. Inspired by Kaibutsuko's 2doc Siren Au on Tumblr.





	Transience

**Author's Note:**

> Woo, more Siren Au drabbles! This takes place after Noodle has led Murdoc to Russel's ship and the captain has taken him in. At this point, Stu and Murdoc have begun to see each other as more than friends, although they haven't really defined their relationship yet. Basically just another two thousand words of Murdoc not understanding the concept of kindness and struggling with emotions.

Murdoc had been staring at the thick oak door for ages now, too afraid to knock. Instead he’d followed the different lines on the grain of the wood, counted the knots, noticed a few chips in it, one of them looking like a knife had been thrown at it and stuck. After hesitating for what felt like hours and counting the knots six times, Murdoc finally gathered up the courage and knocked on the door to Russel’s private study.

“Come in,” came the order.

The pirate opened the door part way and stuck his head in. “Er, hiya, Captain Hobbs. It’s me.” 

Russel kept his back to Murdoc, bent over his desk and reading over some manuscripts and maps from the look of it. To the pirate’s surprise, he was not immediately turned away. 

“Well, come in then. Or are you going to talk to me from the doorway?”

“Right, right,” Murdoc scrambled inside and took in the compact but densely-decorated space. In his days on board Russel’s ship, he’d never been in his study, and now he wished he’d come sooner.

There were shelves and shelves of books, many of them atlases, still others were books of poetry and philosophy. Murdoc recognized several of his favorite English poets from his teenage years, when he’d still spent a fair amount of time on land waiting to find ships that would allow him on despite his young age. Russel apparently spoke several languages though, as there was also several Latin texts, a few of them on botany from the looks of it, and a few novels that appeared to be French. Pinned to the side of the bookshelves were scrolls with Chinese—or were they Japanese?—characters on them. Calligraphy, was that the word? Murdoc was too overwhelmed to recall. 

The room was also filled with spoils—no, Russel was no pirate— _gifts_ —from his previous voyages around the world: African statues and amulets, hand-woven bags from Latin America, paper fans from the mountains of China. There were even several stuffed animals—several seabirds and a few bats, and the skull of a monkey with rubies shoved into its eye sockets. 

The small man would have continued gaping all night, but Russel finally turned to face him, and he instantly snapped to attention when the captain’s eyes landed on him.

“What is it then, Murdoc? What did you want to speak with me about?” he picked up a small cherry wood pipe that was on his desk next to the manuscript he had been pouring over, and Murdoc scrambled for a match in his pocket to light it for him as he filled the bowl with tobacco.

“Well, I wanted to ask you about…Noodle actually, sir.”

Russel scowled. “What about her? She’s her own person; you have a question for her, go ask her yourself.”

He put up one hand defensively as his right hand seized a small pack of matches. “No, no, it’s…I have to ask you about her.” Murdoc sighed and ran a hand through his hair nervously. “I…she’s really seen some hard times, huh? Her face is badly scared. And her fins too. She must have been so close to death when you came across her—”

“You’d better get where you’re going, because I don’t like this conversation one bit,” the captain growled, his frown lines hidden by his white beard. But his eyes conveyed enough danger to have the pirate squirming. Nevertheless, he pushed on with his questions.

“What made you save her?” he blurted out. “I mean, I know you took pity because she was in bad shape. But she’s a siren, Captain Hobbs. A predator to humans. You had no guarantee that she wouldn’t sing and seduce and then _eat_ your whole crew once she recovered, so why the hell did you take the risk to save her, to take such a gamble?”

Once he’d forced the words out, he busied himself with lighting a match and offering it to the captain, who, despite his narrowed eyes, accepted the offer and held the bowl steady and puffed it lightly until it was smoldering, a sweet aroma drifting out of it. Quality stuff, no doubt.

“As far as I can see, she hasn’t eaten me or my crew, so I’d say saving her wasn’t such a risk at all,” he answered. “Guess she isn’t a danger to me, and after over a decade, I doubt she’s going to turn on me. Noodle’s good.”

“Okay, but you didn’t know that back when you found her,” Murdoc argued. “You had no way of knowing. What made you look at a creature with teeth like knives, with a tail that could crush a man’s femur, and want to nurse her back to health?”

“She was just a child—”

“I know but—”

“Did you just interrupt me?” Russel challenged, raising a brow and puffing out a plume of smoke. It smelled intoxicating, but Murdoc bit back the urge to ask for a puff, although his nerves were frayed and his body was screaming at him to light up a cigarette or better yet, to douse his anxiety with a bottle of rum.

“No! Er, I mean I did, but I didn’t mean to, Captain.” He looked down at his boots, mortified at his own boldness. Russel could kick him off the ship at any time if he desired; he could hand him over to the authorities and have him arrested, hung. And here he was, challenging his life decisions like an ungrateful ponce. He could see now that he’d been a fool to come down here and try to understand.

“Listen to me, pirate. I think what you’re asking me is not why I saved a siren, but why I took a chance on saving another being’s life at all. I could have saved a man and he could have turned around and stolen from me. I could have saved a child who would grow up and shoot me dead. I didn’t save Noodle because she was a siren, I saved her because I saw another life force struggling against death, and I decided to help the fight for life.”

Murdoc looked over Russel’s shoulder at a globe, nodding although he didn’t really know what the man meant by “life force.” He was too nervous to meet his eyes directly.

“I think you’re asking me this because you want to understand why your own life was saved, and saved by someone who could have made you dinner at that.”

He cleared his through and nodded. “Yeah. I guess…I guess that’s what I was trying to figure out. I mean, you saved Noodle and continue to look at her. She helps you travel the globe, saving humans and marine life. You two are like a pair of heroes. Stu saved me, and what did he get out of it? A drunkard. A thief. A monster.”

“I thought sirens were the monsters,” Russel rejoined.

“Hm?”

“That’s the thing, Murdoc. You’re so eager to compartmentalize things as either good or bad. Sirens are bad, they’re predators, monsters. But then, you see Stu as good and yourself as a monster. Your method of categorization makes no sense. Stop trying to make yourself something that can or can’t be justified. Stop trying to squeeze the entirety of your being into a box.”

“But—”

“I don’t know what possessed him to save you, alright? Frankly, pirate, I doubt you’ll ever get an answer that will satisfy you. Maybe it was an act of compassion. Maybe he saw something in you that he related or connected to, or maybe something you did intrigued him.”

“Doubtful. I couldn’t move and I was suffocating.”

“Well,” he removed the pipe from his teeth and inspected it. “Maybe it wasn’t anything that you did. Maybe it was all him, just acting on a whim.”

“All him?” Murdoc rolled back on his heels. “Like he’s some sort of angel?”

The captain snorted. “Sure, maybe. Or maybe it was just a spur of the moment decision.” Much to the pirate’s surprise, Russel placed a hand on his shoulder. “Your problem is you’re desperate to ascribe meaning to a chance encounter that saved your life. Stu saved you over a month ago, Murdoc. Maybe it’s time to stop asking why, and start focusing on what you’re going to do with the rest of your life since you’re here.”

Murdoc looked down again, unable too meet the captain’s stern gaze, afraid of what the man would see in his face. He was right. “It’s hard to do that though,” he admitted. “I understand what you’re saying, but I’ve never been shown such compassion. I don’t know how to pay him back.”

“Really? You can’t think of anything? I’ve seen that shy little thing circle this ship all day since you came aboard, looking for you, waiting for moments where you aren’t busy and can spend some time with him. I see that pink glow underwater at night sometimes too. He wants your companionship. Look, I know you’ve got a lot on your shoulders. Life’s been cruel to you, so you’ve learned to be cruel back. But the converse must also be true: when people in life show you kindness, why don’t you try returning it? See what happens.”

“What if I can’t do that? What if I’m bad at being kind?” 

The captain pursed his lips together, looking dubious. “Even _you_ can’t be that bad,” he replied. “Now I have a lot of work to do. Why don’t mull over how you can sort things out so I can plot our course back up north after we’ve finished our deliveries?”

“Yes sir,” he responded. He hadn’t asked Russel nearly as many questions as he had hoped to, but he didn’t dare fight with the clear dismissal. “Um. Thanks. For listening to me. And taking me on board in general. Seems like I’ve been shown more kindness in the past month than I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Russel was already turning back to the pages before him, spreading open several small atlases and comparing the notes scribbled on them. “You’re handy onboard a ship this big,” he acknowledged. “As long as you carry your weight, you can stay. I’m not interested in how complicated a man’s past is. If he can show me with his actions that he’s willing to do the right thing, then I’m satisfied with that and dig no deeper. Life is too short and precious to waste in questions about what could be, so we must always dedicate ourselves to the now. Try to remember that.”

“Aye, sir. Wise words. Thank you.” 

And with that, Murdoc left the captain to his business, closing the door behind him as softly as possible and wandering over to the side of the ship, peering over into ink black sea for signs of the pink bioluminescence he’d come to recognize as the closest thing to a friend he had in this world.

Pulling a cigarette out of his back pocket and lighting it, Murdoc sighed. He’d been too scared to ask Russel about kissing Stu, about the way their relationship seemed to have begun to evolve into something…intimate. Romantic, even.

He knew the captain was not likely to kick him off the ship for his sexuality. Captain Russel Hobb’s lack of judgment surely extended to matters of what a man liked behind closed doors. But Stu wasn’t just male—he was a siren. And Russel could insist all he liked that sirens weren’t inherently evil or bad, but it didn’t’ change the fact that Stu was a different fucking species, an overgrown _fish_ , and Murdoc desperately wanted someone to confide in about how much he liked it when Stu wrapped his arms around his shoulders, when he pressed his lips to the siren’s and the rest of the world faded for a few moments. He blushed at the thought, at the way his heart fluttered at Stu’s tenderness, how he always made sure Murdoc was comfortable with their contact, ready to back away if Murdoc began to tense as bad memories and post traumatic stress began to coil his muscles tight. Touching Stu was becoming something he craved, and he didn’t know who to ask for advice, or whether or not he should be giving into this kind of desire.

To his disappointment, there were no signs of Stu anywhere in the waves that lapped the ship. He was either deep underwater sleeping or hunting. Or perhaps he was on shore somewhere, overtaking a smaller ship with the rest of his clan and eating some poor unsuspecting sailor. Murdoc finished his cigarette and blew the last lungful of smoke into the night sky, wondering what he would say if Stu approached him the next day with human flesh and bone stuck between his teeth.

He supposed he wouldn’t mind all that much as long as the siren gave him that sweet smile, like he was so elated to see Murdoc. Like he didn’t care at all that he was an alcoholic, a pirate, a thief, a mess of a being.

The sound of waves eventually began to ease his nerves, and Murdoc felt himself leaning more heavily against the side of the ship, sleepy and ready to retire for the night. Still, he waited in the vain hope that he’d recognize the glow of his friend, looking for him even in the middle of the night. But as the minutes passed, he knew he was being unrealistic, and resolved to spend some time with the siren the first chance he got come sunrise. 

And the next time they spoke, he resolved, he’d spend less time worrying about why Stu was there with him, and try to simply savor the moment instead.


End file.
